OSNews

You are right, but it could also be percieved as minimalistic which to me and some others might be more useful than a flashy website.

I'd say the design is quite good. What I interpret from the site is that it is a place of work, development, code and progress, not lickable buttons or other such window dressing. You get what you are looking at. The logo with the metal grill and the minimalist look drives home the 'realism' of development, in that the design succeeds.

Although some of their pages are missing a .css meta-link.

http://macosforge.org/subversion.html
http://bonjour.macosforge.org/sources.html
http://bonjour.macosforge.org/contact.html
http://kernel.macosforge.org/sources.html
http://kernel.macosforge.org/contact.html
http://launchd.macosforge.org/sources.html
http://launchd.macosforge.org/contact.html

I'm still a little confused on how this site is "dedicated to supporting the developer community surrounding open source components specific to Mac OS X" when it appears to just be a WordPress blog with Trac installed along-side. What other features does MacOSForge offer, did they really need to add the "Forge"? We shall see how the site progresses.

Edited 2006-08-08 07:39

So many people writting so much bullshit out there, all based on rumors and non-verified facts. At the end they look like stupid......

Or maybe the backlash and all the "bullshit" people wrote made the folks at Apple realize just how much the community really does care about their support of open source. I mean statementslike "the Intel kernel sources haven't been released" and "OpenDarwin is shutting down", aren't really bullshit....those were facts just a short time ago.

I doubt it was the backlash. More likely it was time they needed to secure proprietary code and make the necessary modifications (for example, to XNU) to be able to share their code.

to think Apple was pulling the plug. It's fun to watch.

Hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it?

People are also too quick to shower Apple in praise for projects just announced or started. Then again each OS has these types of people, eternal critics/fans.

I would say "yes".

Like Solaris, Linux, etc. To release the kernel Apple has to make sure no proprietary licensed material is included. We don't want SCO coming after Apple now do we?

Many closed source OSes which have users clamoring for Open Sourcing, such as OS/2, face similar problems with the parent company facing the monumental task of stripping anything licensed from third parties out.

OS X's kernel is not GPL, so it may include as much closed source material as Apple deems necessary where Linux has to release kernels that are all GPL or possibly violate the GPL itself, which is why Novel made news recently when they decided to exclude non GPL modules in their releases.

Heh. Whatever it is/was, I am guessing it was somewhat well planned, given they seem to like to control their destiny with a heavy rudder.

Hmmm, did that analogy make sense?

I don't want to start any conspiracy theories, but does anyone else find the timing of this odd?

Right after opendarwin dies, suddenly Apple releases the source.

I don't think the timing is odd at all. Currently WWDC06 is going on. Apple didn't announce anything really surprising during Jobs' keynote, I believe there's only the new MacPro, which was to be expected, and the Leopard preview, but no other new products. So, they probably have saved up those things for now.

>from the article
>"Several changes were made in order to publish the
>kernel (xnu) sources. As a result, the kernel built from
>these sources differs from the one found in the 10.4.7
>software update. In order to accommodate these changes,
>several kernel extensions were also modified and must be
>downloaded and installed in order to run a kernel built
>from these sources on Mac OS X 10.4.7 for Intel."

>Is this just Rosetta ? Anything else?

From http://kernel.macosforge.org/intel-build-instructions.html

The open source kernel for Mac OS X for Intel is based on the kernel for 64-bit Mac Pro computers. On these machines, the kernel sources should work AS IS, however on Macintosh computers with 32-bit Intel processors, you must also install several updated kernel extensions.

So you'd rather have a flashy site without source code than a barebones with source code? The site is clearly made by developers for developers - no graphics artists involved.

I think it's great that Apple is relasing kernel code again.

If the corporate Apple goons would have put half the effort into OpenDarwin.org it would still be around.
Not to mention most coporate goons being Apple or Microsoft love the BSD license so they dont have to post source at all.

Noone is moaning about the design, it is just quite surprisingly different from anything Apple would usually do.
I know what i would think if it was released on an 1st April.

It is ok for the site and its name to suck as long as it would contain usufull code, which has to be proven yet, as i find the descriptions of the kernel-code alarming.

Another point is that it just might be too late since they already annoyed many people who tryed contributing to the kernel on opendarwin.

Don't take this as trolling please, just a tiny bitter taste of reality that taints this interesting developement of events.

See it this way : Simple, fast, effective. Typically Apple.

That looks like a commercial…

However: they've owned the domain for almost 2 months now.

Rats, someone beat me to it.

Could be, but remember this post from Apple's discussion list?
http://lists.apple.com/archives/Fed-talk/2006/May/msg00105.html

"Ernest N. Prabhakar, Ph.D.
Product Manager, Open Source & Open Standards; Mac OS X Product Marketing"

Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Drernie

Wrong. It is hosted/run by Apple.

> host www.macosforge.org
www.macosforge.org has address 17.254.17.105
> whois 17.254.17.105

OrgName: Apple Computer, Inc.
OrgID: APPLEC-3
Address: 20740 Valley Green Drive, MS32E
City: Cupertino
StateProv: CA
PostalCode: 95014
Country: US

NetRange: 17.0.0.0 - 17.255.255.255
CIDR: 17.0.0.0/8
NetName: APPLE-WWNET
NetHandle: NET-17-0-0-0-1
Parent:
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: NSERVER.APPLE.COM
NameServer: NSERVER2.APPLE.COM
NameServer: NSERVER.EURO.APPLE.COM
NameServer: NSERVER.ASIA.APPLE.COM
Comment:
RegDate: 1990-04-16
Updated: 2000-05-23

RTechHandle: ZA42-ARIN
RTechName: Apple Computer, Inc.
RTechPhone: +1-408-974-7777
RTechEmail: Apple-NOC@apple.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-08-07 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.
>

I do share your disappointment regarding absence of iTunes and QuickTime on Linux and FreeBSD. I would love to release binaries of both QuickTime and iTunes Linux and FreeBSD, well in a perfect world that might happen.